August 17, 2010 - Posted by admin - 0 Comments
CHAPTER ONE
1995-1996
If Andie Carrington hadn’t disobeyed her parents, the boy would never have seen her, but she did and he did and it would change them both forever.
Andie wasn’t supposed to play too near the creek in the woods. It was out of sight of the house and her parents were afraid she’d fall in and drown, but Andie was pretty sure it was too shallow. Since she couldn’t swim, she never actually went as far as the water, just in case her parents were right, but she loved to play on the bank. She liked the sound as the water trickled over and around the rocks. Frogs croaked incessantly. She fancied they talked to each other all day about such things as whether it might rain before the creek dried up, how fast their tadpoles were growing and what a nice day it was for a picnic. A hive of bees in a pine tree across the creek hummed in unison. She often hummed along, sometimes even making up a nonsensical song.
For the past three months, she had been putting together a miniature town she named “Carringtown.” Today she was carving roads out of the barely damp dirt with a putty knife. She was also distracted by a dream she’d had last night, which was why she absently ventured closer to the creek than was allowed. A long-haired boy was in the dream. She had never seen him for real, but in the dreams, she knew him and he knew her.
A fly buzzed Andie’s face and broke her concentration. She looked up to slap it away and saw him. The boy from her dream. Across the narrow creek. Sitting cross-legged with his back against an oak tree. He did have long, straight black hair and looked like he could be one of the Hoopa Native Americans at her school.
She drew in a quick, surprised breath. “Are you real?”
He rose. “I think so. Why do you ask?”
Should she tell him? Why not. “I dreamed about you last night and now here you are.”
“Interesting, because I dreamed about you too.”
She stood as well, her town forgotten. “I’m also real.”
“What a relief. I’ve seen your little town a few times and noticed it growing. Since I didn’t see who was building it, I thought maybe it was ghosts.”
She put her hands on her hips. “There are no such things as ghosts. Except in nightmares. Was your dream about me a nightmare?”
“I don’t have nightmares. I dreamed I met this kid named Peaches. She looked just like you. Nice to meet you, Peaches.”
She glared at him. “Peaches? What a silly name. Just because you dreamed it doesn’t make it true.”
“Well, part of it is true. I did meet you today. I guess I dreamed the silly name because I don’t know your real name.”
“I don’t know yours, either, but I sure wouldn’t call you ‘Peaches’.”
“I would hope not. My name is Dav.”
“What’s your last name?”
“Wolfe.”
“What kind of name is Dav?”
“The kind my mother gave me.” He leaned back casually against the tree.
Andie rolled her eyes. “Well, I have a normal name. It’s Andie. Carrington.”
“I have a normal name too. It’s David. Dav is a nickname and Andy is a boy’s name.”
“It’s really Andra, but Andie is my nickname. A-N-D-I-E. Not the boy spelling.”
“How old are you?”
“Ten going on twenty is what my father says. How old are you?”
“Eighteen.” He picked up a flat stone and skipped it down the creek.
“Wow! Six times. I can never do more than two.”
“It takes practice, Andra.”
“I like Andie. If you call me Andra, I might ignore you.”
“Why? Andra is such a pretty name. But, I’ll call you Andie. Or Peaches.” He grinned.
“If I can call you Dav.”
“Sure. Would it be all right if I came over to look at your town up close?”
She hesitated and looked back toward the direction of her house. “I don’t think so.”
“Why?”
“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”
“Very wise. Okay, I’ll just stay here. We can talk and get to know each other. Then we won’t be strangers anymore.” He sat back down.
She glared at him. “Why do we need to know each other?”
“You’re right. We don’t. Even if you are special.” He got up, turned away from her, and took a couple of steps.
She went to the edge of the water. “Special?”
He spun around. “So I’ve heard.”
“Who told you that?”
“The Council… Some people I know. But I guess they were wrong, which is fine with me. I didn’t want to come here anyway, even though they sent me to teach you. I have things I’d rather be doing than talking to a little kid.”
“Then go away. I already have a teacher and she likes kids.”
“Lucky you. But I can’t go away. Orders from the Council, you know.” He gave a mock salute.
In spite of herself, she giggled. “Okay. Come on over. And don’t call me a little kid.”
He waded across the shallow creek.
“Yuck. Your flip flops are going to get full of mud.”
“No, they aren’t. There are too many rocks on the bottom.” He stepped onto her side of the bank. “I can see you like miniatures. Why don’t you have a doll house?”
“Boring. How many times can you pretend mom is cooking or giving the baby a bath? I’d rather do it this way, so if I get tired of where something is I can move it. Like this.” She knelt by her town and picked up a house. “These people don’t get along with their neighbors so I’ve been thinking of moving them to the next block. It’s why I was building roads today.”
He knelt too, and studied the town. “You need a jail for the bad guys.”
“I don’t have a sheriff. My dad brings me something every time he comes back from a business trip. He’s coming home from one today. I’m hoping for a doctor.”
“You don’t have a hospital.” He touched the buildings, one at a time. “This is a church, this is a school.”
“Supermarket,” she said, touching the next one. “It needs a big parking lot, but I don’t have any cement. This is the library.”
“Where are the people?”
“So far, the only ones I have are the farmer, his wife, and two kids. They live way out of town. Maybe Dad will bring some cows this time. I never know.”
“It must be fun to be surprised. I like the farmer’s barn and tractor. You know, once this is all done, you should enter it in the county fair.”
“Great idea! Maybe I will.”
“I better go, but I’ll come again sometime to see what your father brings you.” He went back across the creek.
She decided to go home too. Her father’s car was in the driveway. As she banged through the door she shouted, “Daddy, you’re home!”
Her father swept her up and twirled around the room with her in his arms.
“I missed you so much. You were gone forever,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck.
Her mother laughed. “My goodness, he was only gone for a week.”
Daddy put her down and grinned. “Forever, right? I don’t suppose you think I brought you anything, do you?”
She beamed with excitement. “What is it this time, Daddy?”
“Take a guess.”
Andie loved this part. It was a game she and her father always played. So far, she had never guessed right. She looked up at the ceiling and poked an index finger into her cheek as though seriously contemplating. “I guess…a doctor.”
“Wrong.”
She laughed, delighted. “Then, I guess you will just have to let me see for myself.” She held out her hand into which he put the expected red box with flowery gold lettering. She knew without looking what the words said: A Big Gift From Ginny’s Minis.
Inside, wrapped in tissue, were a miniature sheriff and his deputy. “Oh, Daddy, they are so cool!” She threw herself into his arms and hugged him.
All of a sudden, she thought about Dav. Funny he had said she needed a jail. It was almost as if he knew she was getting a sheriff.
Even after she went to bed, she couldn’t stop thinking about him. Where had he come from? Not Danforth Corners. Since the school is kindergarten through twelve and only has eighty-five students, I would have seen him sometime, even if he was out now.
She wanted so much to call her best friend, Lisa, and tell her about him, but she didn’t. Lisa might think she was just making him up. She wondered if she would see him again. Carefully, she put the new sheriff and his deputy on the nightstand next to her bed and admired them for a few minutes until her eyes closed.
She dreamed of a long-haired boy.
Andie awoke at dawn. It was Saturday. She could hardly wait to take her newest treasures to Carringtown. She hurried through her Cheerios and with a glance toward her mother, picked up the bowl and drank the remaining milk. “Can I go to the creek now?”
Her mother said, “Yes. Be careful and stay away from the water.”
She always says the exact same thing.
“And watch for snakes,” her father reminded her absently as he read the sports page of the San Francisco Chronicle.
She mouthed the expected warning with him, then grinned. “I will, Daddy.”
Once outside, she skipped through the grass to the edge of the trees. Dew sparkled under her feet, but it was already getting hot. She slowed to a walk, looking ahead and to the side for snakes, as her father had taught her to do. The pine trees were tall and thick enough that she couldn’t see the house, once she was in what she thought of as her own private little forest. She followed a well-worn path until the land opened onto a dirt creek bank. Something caught her eye and she stopped dead still. Unable to believe what she saw, she inched closer, certain it would disappear if she moved too fast.
At last she stood over her town. Where yesterday there were a few dirt paths scraped smooth by her putty knife, today those same ruts were cement. They also had tiny broken white lines painted down the middle. Best of all, the supermarket had a large square of cement with many lines, which were parking spaces. The parking lot was done on top of a cardboard box. She realized it was so she could pick it up if she decided to move the market or enter the town in the fair.
She got down on her hands and knees and gingerly touched one of the small, cement tracks. Her finger pressed into it. Mortified, she wiped the offending finger on her shorts and quickly found a stick to smooth away her print.
“It isn’t dry yet.”
Her head whirled toward the other side of the creek. “You did this, Dav?”
“Yes. Do you like it?”
“It…it’s great. But how…why…”
He smiled. “It was something to do.”
“Pretty dumb to work in the dark. How did you know you got the roads straight?”
“I have a flashlight. They aren’t all straight. The one I made to the farm has a lot of curves. If it was straight, it would run into the fields of corn and green beans.” He grinned.
She stared at it and smiled. “You are better at pretending than I am. ‘Course, you’re a lot older so you’ve had more practice. I never thought of cornfields. I like it. Lots and lots of cornfields. I love corn on the cob. Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you for doing all this, but… You didn’t have to.”
“Yes, I did.”
She was puzzled. “You did? Why?”
“I already told you. To save the cornfields.”
“And beans.”
“And beans.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know if I believe you.”
“Okay, how about this? I did it because someday, when you are all grown up, you might need me to save more than cornfields.”
“Huh?”
He smiled. “Leave it there for now, Peaches. See you later.”
After he was gone, she spent some time deciding where to put her new figurines. She did need a jail and a sheriff’s office. She’d drop a hint to her dad. Meantime, they would have to be outside, keeping an eye on things in Carringtown.
* * * *
Andie’s thoughts of keeping Dav to herself lasted exactly two days. On Monday, she shared everything she could remember with her best friend, Lisa Trainor.
“Gosh, weren’t you scared of him?” Lisa’s eyes were wide and her peanut butter sandwich lay forgotten on the blue metal lunch table.
Andie watched for a few moments as some boys ran past on the way to the playground to play basketball. She compared them to Dav. He was cuter than any of them. “Heck no. He wasn’t scary. He was cool.”
“Maybe, but to just show up in the woods from nowhere…” She tugged on a blonde braid, looking a little scared.
“It’s kinda weird, I know. I haven’t told my mom and dad about him yet.”
“Does he go to school here?” Lisa picked up her sandwich and took a bite.
“I don’t think so. Do you want my pickle? I hate pickles.”
Lisa reached for it. “Hand it over. Hey, could I spend the night Saturday? Maybe I could see him.”
“Yeah! I’ll check with Mom, but I know she’ll say it’s okay. Just be sure you don’t mention Dav.”
“As if.”
* * * *
Saturday came quickly. Andie had gone to the creek every day to work on her town, but Dav hadn’t appeared. She wasn’t sure whether to be happy or sad, so she ignored whatever feelings came up and concentrated on Carringtown. She was about ready to plant some seeds around the perimeter so she could have something like the trees surrounding Danforth Corners. Lisa wasn’t much interested in miniatures, but she did like to plant things. She would be a big help. Just as she had the thought, Lisa appeared.
“Whatcha doin’?”
“Getting ready to plant. Mom gave me some leftover seeds from when she planted her garden. Grab a stick and help.”
Lisa knelt beside Andie and scooped some seeds into her hand. “What kind are they?”
“Don’t know. Flowers, I think, not veggies. Don’t pay any attention to what it says on the package. Mom always throws any extra seeds together.”
Lisa laughed. “Maybe they’re magic seeds like Jack and the Beanstalk.”
“Yeah, right.”
The girls got down to business. Within a short time, they had a trench filled with seeds all the way around the town.
“Uh-oh. Where will we get the water for them?” Andie said.
“The creek?” Lisa offered.
“You know I’m not supposed to go there.”
“Well, the seeds need water to grow so we’d better think of something.”
Andie knew they could go back to the house for water but it seemed so far away.
“I’ll go,” Lisa volunteered.
“I’m going too.” Andie picked up an empty seed packet. “I’ll use this to carry the water.”
They kicked off their sandals and walked to the creek. “It doesn’t look deep,” Andie said, almost convinced.
They held hands and stuck their feet in the water. It was cold. They hadn’t expected it. Both sucked in their breaths.
“Brr. I’m not sure we should do this.” Andie looked over her shoulder, half expecting her mother to be standing there.
“It’ll be okay. Let’s go.”
They hurried across the icy creek. Water splashed on their shorts. Once across, they fell on the bank and laughed with relief. It hadn’t been hard at all.
“Let’s look around,” Lisa said, shading her eyes from the sun.
They began to tiptoe around the clearing, looking for any signs Dav had been there. The only thing they found out of place was a large faded-blue paper cup, which looked as if it had been there for a long time. Andie grabbed it.
“Now we can water. We’d better get back. If we get caught over here, we’re in big trouble.” She took a last wistful glance around, but no Dav.
“Okay. Let’s go.” When they reached the other side, Lisa said, “I wish we’d seen him.”
“Me too. I haven’t seen him for a long time, about a week.”
“Are you sure he’s real?” Lisa taunted.
“Well, duh. I sure wouldn’t know how to use cement. I didn’t just imagine him. He’s not a ghost.”
“Sorry.”
“No problem. Sometimes I think I dreamed him up, at least until I see the roads he built, then I know for sure he was here.” Carefully, Andie watered the seeds.
“I wonder where he lives. Do you think it’s close by?”
“I wonder too. Watch the seeds so they don’t float away. Maybe he lives in a cave.”
Lisa snorted. “There aren’t any caves around here.”
“Are too. My dad told me there are lots of them. Inactive volcanoes too. There is this stuff called lava on the hills outside of town. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you can find this beautiful, shiny black rock. It’s called ob…” Andie thought hard. “Obsidian!” she crowed. “We saw some, but Dad made me leave it there. He said we shouldn’t disturb it. I’ll tell you, though, I would really like to have a piece of it.”
“What for?” said her practical friend, pushing some dirt to stop a trickle of water about to overflow the trench.
“Just ’cause…because it’s pretty.” Andie surveyed her watering efforts and giggled with satisfaction.
“I’d rather have an ice cream bar.”
Andie threw down the cup and yelled. “Me too! Last one home is a big fat rat!”
They stepped into their sandals and ran as fast as they could. “Watch for snakes!” Andie said.
Across the creek, Dav watched in silent amusement from where he was concealed in a stand of pines. You don’t have to worry about snakes when I’m around, Peaches.
* * * *
School and soccer soon took up most of Andie’s time and she didn’t get to the creek much. The most she managed was once every couple of weeks, but Dav was never there. She played with her little town some. It was more fun when Dav pretended with me. She tried her best to forget him.
She did dream about him occasionally. At least, she thought it was Dav, though he looked different than he had in her first dream of him. He was older and so was she. She sat on a strange animal she couldn’t identify. The older Dav led the animal to the top of a hill, which spilled down to a lush, green valley. Dav turned to her and opened his mouth to speak, but she couldn’t hear what he said. She always woke up before she could dream any further. She would lie there thinking about the dream, wondering what it all meant.
It rained off and on from Christmas through March, and Andie wasn’t allowed to go to the creek. When the ground dried enough to satisfy her parents, she ran to the creek bank to check on Carringtown. Except for the roads and parking lot Dav had made, the town was gone. Dismayed, she plopped to the ground and began to cry.
“Looking for this?” said someone behind her.
Andie jumped up with a yell and whirled around. Her fear vanished instantly when she saw it was Dav. “You scared me,” she said, wiping at her tears.
“I’m sorry.” He held out a paper sack. “Your town. The rain… I thought it best to pick it all up.”
Andie was thrilled. “Wow! Thanks, Dav. You are really cool.” She took the sack he offered.
“Everything is there.”
“Thank…thank you.” She didn’t know what to say next. He was taller than she remembered.
“You are quite welcome. When you didn’t come to the creek, I thought maybe you weren’t going to come any more.”
“My parents don’t much like it when I’m here, especially my mother. They won’t let me come at all when the creek goes over its banks.”
“Can you swim?”
She hated to admit to him she couldn’t, but he had probably already guessed. She shook her head.
“I’ll teach you this summer…if you want.”
Andie hesitated. What would her parents think? “I…I don’t know if I can.”
Dav smiled as if he understood. “Up to you,” he said.
“Do you go to school?” She asked the question she’d wanted to ask since the first time she saw him.
“My mother taught me, but now I’m out.”
Andie nodded sagely. “Home schooled. Lots of kids do it. Still, you are supposed to go to school two days a week. I never saw you there.”
“I never saw you there, either.”
Andie knew he was trying to get out of answering her. There was only one school in Danforth Corners and it wasn’t very big. She decided to drop it. He didn’t seem to want to talk about it.
He started for the creek. “I have to go now, but I’m sure we’ll see each other again.”
She watched him go. After he was out of sight, she carefully took the contents of the sack out and put them on the ground. Just as he’d said, everything was there. She also saw something else, which hadn’t been there before. She gasped as she picked it up. She turned it over in her hand then held it up to catch the sunlight. “Obsidian,” she whispered, but not just obsidian. It was some kind of animal made from the black glass.
Questions raced through her mind. What animal was it? It seemed familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Had Dav found it lying around and thought it was part of her town?
It was so beautiful. She had to ask him where he found it. She also made a promise to herself not to show it to anyone, not even her parents or Lisa. How could she ever explain it?
Having it made her feel special. She wasn’t sure why, but it must have something to do with Dav. She hoped she would see him again soon. In the meantime, she would hide it in her jewelry box. No one but her ever looked in there.
* * * *
It was late summer before she saw him again. He simply showed up one day.
“Did you like my gift?” he said, as if he’d just given her the statue yesterday.
“Yes. Can you read my mind?”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because I love obsidian.”
“I love it too. Sometimes it’s nice to give someone something you love. It’s like giving them a part of yourself.”
“I’ll have to remember that. What is the statue?”
“A wildebeest. It means ‘wild beast’.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“No. They’re real. Look in the dictionary.”
“Where do they live?”
“Oh, here and there,” he answered evasively.
“Maybe there, but not here,” she said with certainty.
He smiled enigmatically. “Don’t be too sure.” He refused to discuss it further, instead asking her if she wanted to learn to swim.
“I’m already taking lessons at the community pool. Besides, the creek isn’t deep enough.”
“It is farther down.”
“I’m not allowed to go farther down.”
“Then there are other things I will teach you.”
“Like what?”
“How to survive in the wilderness.”
“Why would I need to know that?”
He shrugged. “Suppose when you grow up, you want to take a backpacking trip or an overnight hike.”
“We go camping sometimes.”
“Do you know how to get away from a bear or what to do if a snake gets in your tent?”
“Uh…no, not really, but my dad probably does.”
“Probably. But everyone should know. Suppose your father is away from the campsite gathering wood and a skunk wanders into the camp looking for food. Would you know what to do?”
“Run?”
“What if you’re in the tent and the skunk invites himself in and sprays you?”
She giggled. “First, I guess I’d be walking home by myself. Second, I’d take a bath in tomato juice.”
He laughed. “Yes to the first, no to the second. Tomato juice does nothing. You need peroxide and baking soda.”
“Really? Bet my dad doesn’t even know not to use tomato juice.”
“You’ve just had your first lesson in wilderness survival. Interested in continuing?”
She and Dav met almost daily. He taught her what plants were edible and those to avoid. “Never eat a wild mushroom. Some are okay, but if they are poisonous, they can kill you. Even experts can’t always tell the difference. A good source of food is pine nuts. If you put the cone near your campfire, the pine nuts will soon come out easily.”
One day, he pointed to the ground. “See those tracks? They are also called ‘spoor’. These were made by a possum.”
“How do you know?”
“Experience.” He pointed again. “See there? Possum scat.”
She looked closely. “Looks like poop to me.”
He laughed. “Same thing.”
“Well, to me ‘scat’ is what you say to a possum to get it to go away.”
“You are funny, Peaches.”
Another day, he said, “Water is the most important item to your well-being and when you are hiking, you need a lot of it. You can’t drink from a stream, even if it looks clear, because there are many germs you can’t see. The only safe thing is a water purifier. Remember that one fact. It could save your life.”
There didn’t seem to be anything about the wilderness he didn’t know. He even told her you didn’t have to be quiet when you went fishing because the fish couldn’t hear you anyway. She soaked up everything he taught, yet never told anyone about what she learned from him. It was just between the two of them and not to be shared.
She couldn’t figure out why an eighteen-year-old boy would bother with a girl of ten. He told her things she could never have imagined or learned in any school. Still, she sensed he held back as much as he taught. She wondered why, but knew if she asked, he would put her questions aside because he wouldn’t talk about himself.
She felt as if she knew him completely, yet not at all. All she knew was she didn’t want the summer to ever end. Though she couldn’t have put it into words, it was as if she’d never been truly alive before.
As the glorious days went by, she became so caught up in the world Dav taught her about, she felt sick at the thought school would begin soon.
“Summer is almost over,” she said, her tone sad. They sat side by side on the creek bank one day in late August. “I wish it would stay this way forever and I didn’t have to go back to school.”
“Life is a cycle, Peaches. It goes round and round. Nothing is ever lost. School is part of the cycle. You go to learn, yet this summer will always be in your heart as will all the school years and summers to come.” He pointed to the creek. “For example, remember the tadpoles?”
“Yep. They were so little. It made me sad when they turned into frogs.”
“Everything healthy grows up. Not to grow is to die.”
“I know, but…”
“The frogs will have more tadpoles and the cycle of life will continue. If the tadpoles didn’t turn into frogs…” He said nothing more, as if she was supposed to figure it out for herself.
“I guess,” she said, “but school starts next week and I’m not ready yet.”
“Sure you are. It’s something you have to do just like I have to go away for a while.”
Andie looked at him through tear-clouded eyes. “Again? Why? Where?”
“I can’t tell you right now, but I promise, some day you will know.”
Tentatively, she took his hand and looked up at him. “Thank you, Dav. I have learned so much important stuff from you. I wish you could tell me where you are going, but I know you have secrets.”
“I do, but everyone has secrets. I’ll bet you have some.”
“Yes, but I’ll tell you one of them.” She leaned closer to him. “You know the obsidian wildebeest you gave me?”
“What about it?”
She whispered to him. “Sometimes its eyes glow for no reason.”
“Are you sure there’s no reason?”
“What reason could there be?”
“Maybe that’s one of my secrets.”
“No way.”
He just smiled and changed the subject. “The first day we met, I told you I didn’t want to talk to little kids.”
“You sure did a lot of talking anyway.”
“And by my doing so, you learned a lot. I thought you would waste my time. You surprised me.”
“Did I also surprise those people you said sent you here? The Council?”
“Don’t worry about them for now.”
“I knew you were making them up.”
“Guess you’re too smart for me.”
“Will I see you again?”
“Yes. I promise. And I’d like a promise from you. Don’t let this summer be wasted. Find a way to use what you’ve learned from me.”
She wasn’t sure how, but promised to try.
She watched with sadness as he waded into the creek. When he was halfway across, he turned to her. “One more thing, Peaches. Everything is connected. Always remember that.” Before she could even wonder what he meant, he hurried across the creek and, once again, disappeared into the trees.
She missed him terribly. As the years passed and she never saw Dav, he took on a mythical quality. It was as if her magical tenth summer had never happened, except in her dreams.
The only way she knew it had been real was the little obsidian wildebeest residing in her jewelry box. She had looked it up in the dictionary as he’d suggested. He was right. It did mean “wild beast” and it lived in Africa. It was also called a “gnu”, but she liked wildebeest better.
Occasionally she would take it out and stare at it, and memories of Dav would hit her with a vengeance. During those times, she would take stock of her life–the dances she hadn’t attended, the dates she’d turned down–all because the boys she knew couldn’t measure up to the long-haired boy she believed she had been, and would be, connected to all her life.
* * * *
Seven Years Later
“We did it!” Andie hugged Lisa. “I thought this day would never come.”
“You and me both. Officially graduated. Arizona State, here I come.”
“Wish you were going with me to L.A., but I know your Dad wants you to go to his alma mater.”
“Just as well. He couldn’t afford the California Applied Research Institute.”
“Mine, either. I was lucky to get a full ride. And they refer to it as ‘CARI’.”
“Well excuse me.” Lisa grinned.
“Hop in,” Andie said as they reached her car. “Grad night beckons.”
When Andie pulled up to the grange hall, she saw a sign congratulating the class of 2003. Once she and Lisa were inside, she led the way through milling classmates to the punch table. Crepe paper decorations were already beginning to stretch and sag. A helium-filled balloon came drifting toward her. She laughed and batted it out of the way.
As she waited to be served punch, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She turned toward the door. Dav leaned casually against the wall just inside. He stared at her, his arms folded, a small smile on his lips.
Oh, my God. I don’t believe it. She walked toward him. The world around her disappeared. There was only her and him. When she reached him, she held out her hand. He grasped it.
“Come with me outside where it’s quieter.”
She walked hand-in-hand with him until the noise from inside faded.
“Dav. Are you real?”
“I think so. Seems we’ve said these things before.”
“You promised we’d see each other again. I just never thought it would take so long.”
“I’m sorry it did. For me, one day you were a child and the next, a beautiful young woman. When I saw you walk down the aisle I felt as if I’d been hit by a torpedo.”
Her heart beat faster. What is he implying? Dare I hope? “I didn’t know you were at my graduation. I didn’t sense you like I did a few minutes ago,” she said, pleased that her tone sounded normal.
“I didn’t intend for you to.”
“What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t matter right now. I have a graduation gift for you.” He opened his large hand. She saw a tiny box resting on his palm. He held his hand out and she took the box and opened it.
Inside lay a gold chain in a circle. Nestled in the circle was an obsidian wildebeest, slightly smaller than the one he’d given her years ago. “It’s beautiful.” She lifted it out of the box. “But why? Wildebeests must be important to you.”
“Of course they are.”
“Why?”
“You know, Peaches, I taught you a lot one summer long ago, but you also knew I didn’t teach you everything I know. The wildebeest is important to me and so are you. That’s why I shared it with you–twice–but as to why it’s important, well, I can’t tell you until the time is right. I will tell you this much. If you wear it, it will keep you safe.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Like a talisman? Are you superstitious?”
He gave a slight shrug. “Perhaps, but what can it hurt?”
As she held it, its eyes glowed in the moonlight. She looked at his eyes. The moon had the same effect on them. She laughed shakily. ”Remember when I told you the eyes of the wildebeest you gave me when I was ten seemed to glow for no reason. Now this one is doing it too. But this time, the moon is shining on them and in yours. You have wildebeest eyes.”
That seemed to startle him. She wondered why.
“May I put it on you?” he said.
“By all means.” She handed it to him and turned her back to him, lifting her hair off her neck.
He fastened the pendant with sure hands, and then turned her to face him. “Wear it. For me. Please.”
“I will. Always.”
She touched the little statue resting in her cleavage and took in a sharp breath as his strong hand went around hers and his fingers played lightly over her skin beneath the wildebeest. His arms enfolded her and she knew nothing would ever be the same. His lips found hers. Her body tingled as he tasted her, softly at first as if waiting for permission to continue. She whispered his name, her breath mingling with his. She ran her tongue over his lips. He captured it with his teeth and bit down gently. His hands moved down her back and he pulled her even more tightly against his hard body. She had the sensation her very essence was being drawn into his and she would get lost in him forever. And she wanted to. Needed to.
All at once, he pulled away. “Oh, God.”
“What’s wrong?” She sensed him withdrawing mentally and physically. Her hands tightened around his arms.
“What was I thinking? I can’t do this. As much as I want to, I can’t.”
“I don’t understand.” She came back to earth with a thud and let go of him.
“I have no right.”
“I gave you the right.”
“Yes, but it’s not up to you.”
She was puzzled. “Who is it up to if not me?”
He gave a short laugh. “Would you believe me if I said the Council?”
“Good God. Them again? Is this phantom council of yours your standard excuse?” She had gone from feeling well-loved to anger.
“I don’t expect you to understand now, but one day, you will.”
“Oh, really. How? I get the feeling I’ll never see you again.”
He caressed her soft cheek for a moment. “Believe me. We’ll meet again. When the time is right.”
